DC Comics Drops The Comics Code Authority Seal of Approval

Today on their blog, DC Comics co-publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee announced that DC Comics would no longer submit their books to The Comics Code Authority for approval. They will instead use their own ratings system for each book. The changes go into effect in April.

The Comics Code Authority came about in 1954 and is a relic from the era of Wertham-inspired fear, when comic books were thought to cause deviant behanvior in young boys. In order for the comic book industry to survive they had to submit themselves to oversight from the The Comics Code Authority who had a list of what could and could not be portrayed in the pages of a comic book.

Over the years the guidelines were updated and changed with the times and occasionally both DC and Marvel Comics would publish an issue without Comics Code Authority Approval.

As each year passed, The Comics Code Authority became less and less relevant to modern day comic books and in 2001 Marvel Comics stopped submitting their books to The Comics Code Authority. Until today DC Comics was still submitting their DC Universe and Johnny DC books to The Comics Code Authority.

 

Comments

  1. Farewell censorship.  Great news.

  2. Not really censorship per se. It’s kind of like checking yourself in and out of rehab. The simile doesn’t extend any farther than that, but there it is.

  3. I had no idea they still did this.

  4. If Didio is Bo-publisher then the make Jim Lee Luke

  5. I don’t know.  Between Episode 250 of the Pick of the Week Podcast and some episodes of Eleven O’Clock Comics, I have to submit that comics may cause deviant behavior amongst some adult men.

  6. I coulda sworn they dropped it years ago. I can’t remember the last time i actually saw that comics code stamp anywhere outside of a coffee table book or an article on the internet. were they still putting it on the cover?

  7. @Nawida I think the idea that DiDio once said at a con was that it was just easier to send everything to the CCA and have them sign off on it then have to develop an in house grading schema for Johnny DC and the DCU.

  8. Is the CCA an actual business that employs people? I’m trying to imagine what the offices of the CCA will look like now that DC is pulling out. Will it just be a guy in a broom closet stamping “Approved” onto Archie comics?

  9. Its kinda funny that so many recent DC books actually were within code! i guess that was a very sliding scale. 

  10. BIFF! BAM! POW! Comics aren’t just for kids anymore!

  11.  Without their seal of approval will I get some kind of evil urge or something?

  12. Long overdue. 

  13. Can we replace it with the Geoff Johns seal of “AW YEAH, COMICS!”?

  14. @NawidA  Ditto! No clue anyone still adhered to the code.

  15. I think only some of their books were still submitted. Batman and Superman (not inclusive) come to mind. Supergirl? But most were not.

  16. I like DC’s ad of ‘Holding the line at $2.99!’ more than this announcement.

  17. Don’t worry, DC, you’re only 10/40 years behind Marvel (depends how you look at it) on that front.

  18. @TheGoddameDeadpool, nice!!!  

  19. whoops @TheGoddamnDeadpool,  :< typo!!

  20. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?  WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!

  21. Lets fuck shit up !
    Red blood everywhere !!!!
    Menaced women folk !!!
    Cannibalized children on every cover.

  22. @JohhnyNormal  Doesn’t a lot of DC books already feature some of those things?

  23. I wonder if that original “woman in refrigerator” issue was approved by the Comics Code.

  24. Wow!! Now I guess DC will start telling really intense stories where even lame villains like Doctor Light become viscous rapists! Honestly, like many other posters here, the bigger news to me was that DC was still submitting things to CCA…

  25. Can we bring back the Wonder Woman bondage covers back now???

    Matthew

  26. @JohhnyNormal Isn’t that the cover of Crossed every month?  

  27. 2) we want it and our friends at Avatar have been suppling it, for years….with a funny smell.
    1) sure, but now we can get it done in Tiny Titans…now that is diabolical.

     The NA comic industry, hell the very concept of comics as an “acceptable” medium, was destroyed by the witch hunt which left our funnybooks scarred with the code. Arguably this is what has prevented comicbooks mainstream acceptance – ingrained social poison.

    lets give the code to americas good chums the chinese…i think the communists would really approve ! 

  28. Who is going to protect the 30 year old men who actually read comics now?  Tell me!   

  29. so the Rise Of Arsenal mini was CCA approved? The Fuck?!

  30. @boomergirl  Not necessarily. DC didn’t submit everything for approval.

  31. @conor  that makes sense.